In her monthly sales preview, independent retail analyst Jennifer Black said that while the mid-month northeast cold snap was helping to clear winter merchandise that was slow to sell during the December holiday season, specialty stores like Hot Topic, Ann Taylor Stores and Gap have been hindered in their efforts to get merchandise off the shelves by drab styles or heavy discounting.
These early scenes have a drab documentary style.
He initially hated the aggressively drab new style, which incidentally torpedoed his leadership of the avant-garde.
Photographs show curious onlookers, dressed in drab Mao-style suits, with one man with flashy sunglasses peering intently at the paintings, woodblock prints and sculptures.
His pet project has been to transform Astana from a drab Soviet-style city, a lump of concrete in a wilderness of empty steppe, into the nation's administrative centre.
Airmall led the way in prompting American airports to spend many billions of dollars remaking drab, military-style terminals into bustling, well-designed places for passengers to shop and eat reasonably well while waiting for a plane.
For weeks now, those analysts have puzzled over photos of women sporting miniskirts and heels in downtown Pyongyang, a stunning change from the years when Western wear was mostly shunned in favor of billowy traditional dresses or drab Mao-style work uniforms.
For years, the institute's facilities were housed in a drab, Soviet-style building, but this spring they were expanded and renovated to include Ping-Pong tables, coffee lounges, and, on one floor, a so-called open lab with new microscopes, centrifuges, and other equipment that is shared among lab groups.
Under Mr. Hussein, even high-ranking civilian leaders like Mr. Aziz liked to wear olive-drab military-style uniforms signifying their rank in the Baath Party.
The boxy, unornamented American Woman's Association clubhouse had been simple to the point of drab, the International Style with a migraine, designed by the otherwise traditionalist Benjamin Wistar Morris.
